CATS WILL WAIT

AFLW fixture up in air after dispute

GEELONG chief executive Brian Cook says the Cats have no choice but to wait until a conclusion is reached on the AFLW pay deal before they make concrete plans for the impending 2020 season.

The proposal put forward by the AFLPA was knocked back over the weekend, with only 70 per cent of players voting in favour of the deal — just short of the 75 per cent it required to be ticked off.

Several prominent AFLW figures, including Adelaide star Erin Phillips and former Collingwood defender and operations manager Meg Hutchins, publicly backed the AFLPA yesterday, but tensions within the player body remain.

Cook said with no sign of an agreement being reached in the short term the Cats would have to sit back and hope a resolution was reached soon.

“We are not really party to the negotiations and the uniqueness of this industry is the CBAs are done by the AFL and the AFLPA and in this case with AFLW players,” Cook said.

“So we haven’t been updated on negotiations for months … but we are not at the table, so we don’t know when pre-season starts or when the fixtures will come out.

“The main ones we need to get our heads around are training, playing and fixturing — they are what we concern ourselves with.

“From a financial point of view we have to budget for next year so we have been doing that a little bit in the dark because we are not exactly sure what the increase in pay will be, and we don’t know exactly how many home games we will play, so we can’t really be sure of our budget until those things are finished.”

The AFLPA remains hopeful a resolution will be struck in the coming weeks, giving clubs and players enough time to make the appropriate plans to prepare for next year’s instalment of the AFLW competition.

AFLPA boss Paul Marsh will meet with all clubs to discuss concerns and said the player body was open to making adjustments if necessary.

“This is not about going and necessarily trying to change people’s minds,” Marsh said on SEN.

“It’s about going and talking to them and hearing them and seeing where this plays out.

“It could result in a deal that looks different … some of this could be that players don’t completely understand some of the details. It’s going to come back to us getting out there and trying to work with the players.”

While details of the 2020 fixture remain up in the air, Cook, who has spoken briefly with some Geelong players regarding the club’s plans for next year, said the Cats would be asking for additional games at GMHBA Stadium.

“I have had some very casual discussions, nothing formal, with a few of our players and also the women’s program staff and employees,” he said.

“But they are not involved (in negotiations) either so the discussions we have had have been minimal.

“We would expect an extra game down here at GMHBA Stadium, but we have pretty much left the (scheduling) alone.”